Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Vsevolod Chaplin's remarkable remarks

headlines - but then again, it’s not every spokesperson that makes remarks as ear-catching as those of Father Vsevolod Chaplin.

Moscow Patriarchate (early 20th century)

The latest of the Archpriest’s controversial assertions critiques the dressed/undressed ratio of many modern-

day Russian women.Recent AFP headlines have shrieked that Chaplin accused some scantily-clad females of “dressinglike strippers.”Even more attention-getting was his recent outcry that “women who wore mini-skirts and got drunk were to blame if they got raped…”

These remarkable statements should come as no surprise to those who have followed Chaplin’s announcements right along.Voices from Russiareports on a number of his more recent quotables.

﻿﻿
In a December 2010 brawl between Russians and Caucasians, Ygor Sviridov was murdered.His death provoked a number of nationalist protests. At the funeral, Chaplin urged that people follow the laws of God and man rather than the law of the jungle.He added that seeking no revenge and coming together as a society “should be our prayer.”

Father Chaplin is all for speaking out about abortion, as well.He announced that - because of the “horrific” number of legal abortions that have taken place in post-revolutionary Russia – the number of unborn victims “is greater than the number of soldiers killed in all the wars of the twentieth century.”

It is clear - even if only by virtue of these recent headlines - that Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin is a master at getting his points across.Although some of these points may seem rather sharp around the edges, they are nonetheless more mellow than many biblical admonitions.